$46 Billion FirstNet Awarded To AT&T. What’s Your Cut?

March 2017: National First Responder program funds a nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to first responders. http://www.firstnet.gov/ It is a major $46 billion national initiative funded by the Department of Commerce in response to our nation’s inability to support a true national emergency as shown in the horrific events on Sept 11, 2001. AT&T is awarded the first phase of the contract. How does this impact landlords of existing cell towers? Only the select few landlords will have the properties possessing the right attributes to monetize from this major government-funded initiative.

The beneficiary of the program will be (1) first responders when the system is operational (2) AT&T for the profit they will reap from this government contract (3) tower companies (SBA, Crown Castle, and ATC) for having the towers in place to lease additional tower space for such expansions and (4) Tower landlords whose properties possess the right attributes necessary support such infrastructure and have their properties be known as such to the right interested parties who are able to pay more for those marketed designations and attributes. Not surprisingly, practically all existing tower landlords will see no benefits because they do not own the towers. They merely collect rent for the tower ground space.

For the few landlords who currently have revenue-sharing arrangements negotiated in their contracts, they will see a bump up in their monthly income if their site is selected as the FirstNet tower location. For very savvy landlords, they contact CellWaves to change this arrangement so that the lease terms that were negotiated 10-20 years ago are fixed by CellWaves. Click on “Contact Us” and let us tell you how we can help you make even more money.

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Did You Know?

In 2016, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon reported a collective $1.2 billion in profit?Most popular cellular antennas are 6 feet to 8 feet tall?In the metropolitan area, 100 foot tall antenna locations are not good. But in rural areas, taller than 100 foot is almost always preferred?Wireless carriers almost exclusively contract out leasing, zoning, and construction work to outside companies?Higher frequencies don’t travel as far, or penetrate buildings as well as lower frequencies?5G technology is being experimented in 2017, test trials in 2018, and deployed in 2019?The purpose is to obtain higher throughput speeds on mobile handsets while having less dependencies on cell towers and rooftop cell sites.